Samsung drops bid to keep Apple devices out of European countries

On Tuesday, Samsung announced it would withdraw all of its requests for injunctions against Apple products currently pending in European courts, Bloomberg reports. That includes ongoing suits in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the U.K. While it is dropping its bid to keep Apple products out of stores in those countries, it will continue to ask for damages in those patent disputes.

Samsung said in a statement that the move was “in the interest of protecting consumer choice.” But it also could have been related to the European Union’s investigation into whether Samsung had violated any laws in regard to standards essential patents. Companies that own such patents are obligated to license them to other phone makers on reasonable terms.

The decision by Samsung came several hours after a U.S. court ruled against Apple’s request for a permanent sales ban on two dozen Samsung products at home. A California jury had awarded Apple over $1 billion in damages for Samsung’s “willful infringement” of its design patents this summer. But Judge Lucy Koh said that the evidence that Apple lost sales as a result of that infringement wasn’t strong enough to justify keeping all 26 products out of U.S. stores, according to AppleInsider.

Koh also ruled against Samsung on a separate matter. Samsung believed the jury foreman had withheld important information about his alleged prejudice against Samsung — if the judge agreed it could have necessitated retrying the case. But Koh ruled that any statements the foreman had made after the trial were not admissible as evidence.